Posted by Jane Copland
There is absolutely nothing wrong with making up new words for something that, as it stands, can’t be properly named or described with existing language. Quite simply, this is how languages evolve and grow, and it would be next to impossible to name everything with words that already exist. However, there should be a reason behind naming, coinage and the general invention of new words. On top of that, there should be a conscious effort not to invent words that can easily turn into annoying memes, or which become just plain laughable. This is not to say that invented names for online businesses have to mean something, although the good ones often do.
Digg is a good name. Long before Kevin Rose and Owen Byrne launched a popular social media company, people talked about "digging" stuff that they liked. The word is still in use, although I’d like to guess that people who use Digg tend to confine its use almost solely to their actions within the site. If I heard someone say that they "dug" something," I’d hear it with two "g"s. Digg managed to one-up its competitors by easily spawning verbs - a common indication of success. No one I know of "reddits" stories.
A lack of a verb aside, Reddit is also a great name. It doesn’t really matter that when I first heard of it, I immediately thought that their icon would be a frog. The idea that you read it at Reddit completely validates the name, even if the homepage is often littered with [PIC] submissions. StumbleUpon also scores very highly on the "good name" charts. I made a pretty good guess about what the service did before I used it: I assumed that it would have me stumble upon things on the Internet, which is exactly what it does.
More browsing, reviewing and agonising over Web 2.0 Award nominations has had me uncover some of the best - and worst - named sites. To me, a well named website has at least had some thought put into its name’s creation. Its name has been coined for a reason, no matter whether the name initially appears to make sense.
Badoo is one of the sites I’ve come across recently whose name I don’t understand. It is a content sharing and social networking service. Some successful online businesses have named themselves in odd ways (Lulu, Bebo, Wufoo, Monster), but it’s a risky move. Taking that risk probably means a putting up with a tougher time when it comes to early name recognition and branding.
There’s also a balance between creative and silly, and sometimes the two can overlap. "Twitter" is creative and relevant: it’s a real word (which isn’t common amongst web 2.0 names) and it alludes to what people use it for. Birds sit in trees and twitter at each other, supposedly imparting small pieces of information. The problem with the word is that it’s annoying and easy to make fun of. Ideally, I’d say you’d want to avoid this.
Think of the words that you can make from "Twitter." Immediately, we have "twit" which many of us use when we’re referring to total idiots. While twit isn’t a particularly American term and the company was founded in San Francisco, it’s often useful to take a look at the world-wide usage of the language you’re using and figure out of other cultures might see your name differently.
Even SEOmoz is pronounced differently by North Americans than it is by most other English speakers. In U.S. and Canadian English, the "moz" sounds like "maahz"; most other English speakers pronounce it with a more rounded "o" sound. This site explains why way better than I can. Being an employee here, I pronounce the company’s name the way my co-workers do. It sounds odd to me when I hear it said in the way I’d have pronounced it if I’d never worked here.
Luckily for us, our company’s name doesn’t change enough between dialects that it becomes inappropriate, and its meaning doesn’t change. I don’t expect that you can account for every regional subtlety that might exist around the world, but most Americans are at least aware that calling someone a twit isn’t complimentary. Despite the fact that Twitter is a real word and relates to the service, I would not have used it. It success makes my argument weaker, only it stands that people who dislike the phenomenon usually cite its name in the list of things that turn them off.
The additional words that Twitter tends to spawn are also annoying: tweet, twittering and, most recently, tweeple might not aggravate everyone, but they’re certainly polarising. Consider how variations of a name might evolve… Although we definitely didn’t invent it, "Moz" has found plenty of uses in reference to SEOmoz (mozzers, Mozplex, MozSquad etc). Some people probably find this irritating. However, I’d hazard a guess that a smaller percentage of people will dislike this usage than will turn away from using "twit" on a regular basis.
In terms of whether a name should indicate what a site does, it seems that most successful businesses at least hint at their service in their name. Myspace’s name is great, especially considering that its most useful feature is providing bands, comedians, film makers, etc with a space to promote themselves and their work. That the site has morphed into everyone’s gaudy space makes its name even more relevant. Facebook isn’t quite as relevant a name (without having heard of it, you may think of a Hot-or-Not style site), but it also managed to combine two real words to make a somewhat-descriptive name. Even Google means something. Not so sure about Yahoo! though. If anyone knows exactly why Yahoo! was named thus, add the reason in the comments. Or make up your own, because that’s fun, too.
If you’ve been using the Internet for more than a few minutes, you’ll have seen the infamous list of inadvertently terrible domain names. Rarely do you see anyone makes mistakes as blatant as this, but it is worthwhile researching alternate meanings for your potential names. I would also stay away from the completely meaningless names, as inventive as they may sound. Let me leave you with an instant message discussion Rebecca and I had yesterday about the naming of websites. We talk to each other on the Internet even though we sit about five feet from each other:
jane.copland: Sometimes you read these web 2.0 site names and think, "wait. What? That meant NOTHING"
may as well have been a string of words in totally random order.
relizkel: it’s like throwing a dart at a bunch of words on a wall. FLING. "Pop!" FLING. "Chance!"
jane.copland: Case in point: "Badoo is a truly worldwide online community that provides its members with the ability to communicate and share their lives with people both locally and around the globe."
relizkel: FLING: "Slinky!" And you end up with slancepop.com.
Don’t become someone else’s IMed joke: name your business with care.
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